47 Quotes by P.D. Ouspensky

At one moment when I say 'I', one part of me is speaking,and at another moment when I say 'I', it is quite another 'I' speaking.

Everything 'happens'. People can 'do' nothing. From the time we are born to the time we die things happen, happen, happen, and we think we are doing. This is our normal state in life, and even the smallest possibility to do something comes only through the work, and first only in oneself, not externally.

I have become so accustomed to think “scientifically” that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him.

It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.

The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.

Seek the path, do not seek attainment, seek for the path within yourself. Do not expect to hear the truth from others, nor to see it, nor to read it in books. Look for the truth within yourself, not without yourself.

The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious.

Divide in yourself the mechanical from the conscious, see how little there is of the conscious, how seldom it works, and how strong is the mechanical – mechanical attitudes, mechanical intentions, mechanical thoughts, mechanical desires.

The most difficult thing is to know what we do know, and what we do not know.